PALO ALTO — Construction crews are hammering away as the Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life comes to life.

The $300 million project at the corner of San Antonio and Charleston roads in Palo Alto is the area’s first multipurpose, intergenerational Jewish campus.

When completed, the 12.5-acre site will be home to the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center and three housing projects, including an active senior community, non-age-restricted housing and units for low-income seniors.

Alan Sataloff, CEO of the community center, said the integrated campus is the first of its kind.

“We’re creating a community where seniors and families will live together and interact in this neighborhood,” Sataloff said. “We hope it will give people, especially seniors, a sense of life, instead of feeling isolated from the outside world.”

San Mateo-based Webcor Builders is the general contractor for the multi-million-dollar project.

Steinberg Architects President Robert Steinberg said the campus is designed like a medieval village, where the intersection of the buildings creates outdoor spaces.

The pathways are designed as loops to encourage social interactions as residents and community center members move from one activity to another.

“The journey should be as interesting as the destination,” Steinberg said.

Famed landscape designer Lawrence Halprin gave guidance on the promenade that connects the community center with the Moldaw Family Residences. Along the promenade are the teen center, meeting rooms and preschool classrooms.

Steinberg said Jewish history and culture played an important role in the design of the campus. The promenade is designed after Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, and Steinberg said the color scheme is based on the eight colors of harvested fruits and vegetables that would be brought to the temple in the Old World.

Looking around, one can already see shades of grape, wheat, barley and pomegranate covering the walls and floors of completed areas.

The most prominent feature to passersby on San Antonio Road is the Albert & Janet Schultz Cultural Center. Steinberg said the exterior tiles symbolize individuals who together form a whole.

“Because we weren’t able to add windows for lighting and acoustics, we had to find another way to telegraph the energy inside to the outside,” Steinberg said of the design.

The inspiration for the curvilinear-shaped center was a tent. Steinberg explains that historically, Jewish people are nomadic tribes that would congregate in large tents. The carpet in the cultural center will have the effect of rugs layered on top of one another.

In addition to music, lectures and performances lined up for the cultural center, the space will be available to rent to the general public for weddings, bar mitzvahs and corporate meetings.

Approximately 70,000 Jewish people live in the South Peninsula area, but being Jewish isn’t a requirement to join the gym or live in one of the housing developments.

Various funding sources

Funding for the Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life is through a $160 million bond measure and $140 million in private donations.

Palo Alto real estate investor and philanthropist Tad Taube and the Koret Foundation donated $15 million to the community, while Kenneth Oshman, founder of ROLM Corp., and his wife, Barbara, donated $10 million.

Sataloff has been responsible for raising the $136 million to date in private donations.

“The Jewish people have a strong sense of community and believe in having a community center to celebrate life’s events,” he said. “When you start with that, it makes it easier to ask for money.”

Sataloff said Albert Schultz, the current Jewish Community Center’s namesake, agreed to take his name off the new center so that another donor would be able to step up.

“And in addition, Schultz still made an incredibly generous gift,” Sataloff said.

Focus on fitness and activity

The Oshman Family Jewish Community Center is set to open on Sept. 1 with a fitness center, gymnasium, six-lane outdoor pool, indoor family water park pool, spa, sports field and locker rooms for men, women, children and families.

The 150,000-square-foot center will be an upscale club offering free memberships for the first year to residents of the non-age-based housing, Altaire, and complimentary memberships to seniors at the Moldaw Family Residences.

Marilyn Israel, executive director for the Moldaw Family Residences, said the community center’s focus on health, fitness and education is a perfect complement to the residences’ goal of keeping seniors active and engaged for as long as possible.

Moldaw will have 193 housing units with 11 designated for seniors with Alzheimer’s. The Jewish Home of San Francisco, a skilled nursing company, is designing the one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with emergency call systems and other amenities to be wheelchair accessible.

Entrance fees range from $470,000 to $1 million, depending on the size of the units. Israel said 80 percent of the units have been reserved with deposits, and she hopes to start moving residents in by mid to late September.

As part of an agreement with the city of Palo Alto, 56 housing units for low-income seniors are being built by Bridge Housing Corp.

The $23 million development is scheduled to be completed by February 2010.

Regis Homes of Northern California Inc. is building the family housing development, Altaire, next to the community center.

Ken Busch, vice president of development for Regis Homes, said 10 of the 103 units have sold to date. The three- and four-bedroom townhomes are priced from $699,000 to $1 million.